THIS WEEK:

Approaching a Common Ground? Noted Swedish meteorologist and climate modeler Lennart Bengtsson wrote an essay expressing his views of the deficiencies in the current status of climate research. The web site Uppsalainitiativet, which is hardly a site for skeptics, graciously posted the essay in English. Bengtsson notes the inappropriateness of detailed forecasts of future climate in various regions of Sweden (which also applies to the US National Climate Assessment). The weather and climate 80 years hence for a specific location cannot be forecasted. The state of the knowledge is inadequate.

Bengtsson considers that alarmists claim weather events are becoming more extreme is, itself, alarming. He states: Apart from a possible increase in precipitation and a possible intensification of tropical hurricanes that has not yet been detected, there are no indications of extreme weather in the model simulations, and even less so in current observations.

What is perhaps most worrying is the increased tendency of pseudo-science in climate research. This is revealed through the bias in publication records towards only reporting results that support one climate hypothesis, while refraining from publishing results that deviate. Even extremely cold weather, as this year’s winter in north Eastern USA and Canada, is regarded as a consequence of the greenhouse effect.

In discussing the current 17 year period with insignificant or no warming over the oceans, Bengtsson writes: My colleagues and I have been met with scant understanding when trying to point out that observations indicate lower climate sensitivity than model calculations indicate. Such behavior may not even be intentional but rather attributed to an effect that my colleague Hans von Storch calls a social construct.

Bengtsson hopes his essay explains his motivations for first agreeing to join the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), then resigning after intense personal attacks prevented him from focusing on his work.

In an interview published in Quadrant, Judith Curry, branded a heretic in the ScientificAmerican, expresses similar views. Climategate, and weak response by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientists, motivated her to skeptically re-examine her support for the IPCC and its science. Her objections to the current status of the IPCC science include the failure to adequately explain the current 15 – 17 year pause in warming, there is no evidence that the missing heat is hiding in the deep oceans, and the weakness of the IPCC claim that humans are the cause of more than 50% of the recent warming.

She states: The IPCC has outlived its original usefulness. …Scientists do not need to be consensual to be authoritative. Authority rests in the credibility of the arguments, which must include explicit reflection on uncertainties, ambiguities and areas of ignorance and more openness for dissent. The role of scientists should not be to develop political will to act by hiding or simplifying the uncertainties, either explicitly or implicitly, behind a negotiated consensus.

In discussing the support the IPCC has among scientific societies, Curry suggests it is a topic for social psychologists. Perhaps this is similar to what Hans von Storch calls a social construct. Curry suggests the reasons why the issue is not debated are: 1) that establishment scientists do not what to appear to give legitimacy to the skeptics; and 2) the establishment scientists did poorly in the few debates they participated.

Economist Richard Tol expresses his views on what is wrong with the IPCC process. Tol stepped down from the team that produced the Summary for Policymakers of Working Group 2, which addresses impacts, adaptation and vulnerability from global warming/climate change.

Tol writes: The first rule of climate policy should be: do no harm to economic growth. But the IPCC was asked to focus on the risks of climate change alone, and those who volunteered to be its authors eagerly obliged. He considers that the Summary for Policymakers embodied the horsemen of the apocalypse: famine, pestilence, war, and death.

Further, Tol states the Summary for Policymakers of Working Group 3, mitigation, had another issue. Government reviewers eliminated every clause that could be used against government policy, thus making policy debate impossible. In Tol’s view, there is too much money, prestige, etc. at stake to disband the IPCC. But, it must be significantly reformed.

He writes: Away with the infrequent, massive set pieces. Away with alarmism – that has been tried for 25 years, with no discernible impact on emissions. Away with activists posing as scientists. Away with the freshman mistakes.

Just good, sober, solid science. Let the chips fall where they may.

Here we have three scientists who are familiar with the inner workings of the IPCC expressing views similar to those expressed by the lead authors of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), and other independent scientists. The IPCC reports overestimate the influence of atmospheric CO2 on climate, the models are failing, the findings in the Summaries for Policymakers are more political than scientific, and the entire process must be significantly changed or discarded.

Professor Vaclav Klaus, then-President of the Czech Republic, in a Sept 24, 2007 speech at the UN called for an independent review of IPCC science. Many others have also criticized the IPCC, including the prestigious InterAcademy Council, which in 2010, also called for an independent assessment of the scientific evidence, a kind of “second opinion.” NIPCC fulfills that role: Its creation was not supported by governments or any industry, but by private foundations and donations from citizens. See links under Approaching A Common Ground?

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NCA: The IPCC reports, with all their deficiencies, provide the foundation of the US National Climate Assessment (NCA). As stated in prior TWTWs (May 10 & 17), the NCA is prepared by US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which has an annual budget of about $2.5 Billion. The USGCRP does not provide independent review of the IPCC work or independent testing of models. Instead, it tends to promote the most alarmist views of the IPCC. The NCA is a slick document (and web site) of limited scientific value and should not be the basis for any governmental policies.

A group of 15 scientists, including SEPP President and Chairman Fred Singer and SEPP Director Tom Sheahen, have published a substantial rebuttal to the NCA. The rebuttal specifically addresses 5 false claims in the NCA that provide the core of NCA’s justifications. The false claims are: 1) Fundamental Understanding of [Greenhouse] GH Gases; 2) Unusual Warming in Recent Decades; 3) The Climate Models; 4) Extreme Weather – Temperatures; and 5) Extreme Weather – Hurricanes, Droughts, and Floods. The rebuttal concludes: This NCA is so grossly flawed it should play no role in U.S. Energy Policy Analyses and CO2 regulatory processes. As this rebuttal makes clear, the NCA provides no scientific basis whatsoever for regulating CO2 emissions.

One can speculate if Lennart Bengtsson had the NCA in mind when he wrote: Even more alarming is the tendency of giving people the impression that weather events are becoming more extreme, and that this has actually already occurred. As stated above, he wrote that apart from an increase in precipitation and hurricanes, which has not been observed, there are no indications of extreme weather in the model simulations …

The NCA is being used for fund raising and propaganda purposes by the inaccurately-named Union of Concerned Scientists and by Oxfam. Oxfam claims that climate change will cause drastic increases in food prices and attacks major producers of food products for not doing enough to prevent climate change, as if they could. As discussed in the May 17, 2014 TWTW, a group of retired, senior military officers under the name of the CNA Military Advisory Board claim that climate change justifies more biofuels, which will increase food prices. Will Oxfam fight it out with the Military Advisory Board? The New York Times identified the Board as “a leading government-funded military research organization.” See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy, Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine and Un-Science or Non-Science?

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Military Readiness: In a report published by the Heartland Institute, three retired senior naval officers, who are not members of the CNA Military Advisory Board, assert that the Administration’s climate policy is weakening US military readiness. Adm. Thomas B. Hayward, (former Chief of Naval Operations), Vice Adm. Edward S. Briggs, and Capt. Donald K. Forbes (all USN retired) assert there is no scientific basis for claiming that human-caused global warming/climate change is a threat multiplier, and that the Pentagon’s development of wind, solar, and biofuels “diverts critical resources away from other missions at a time when there is less money available to meet our defense needs, including supporting troops by providing them with the hardware they need.” See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy. Note: Donald Forbes is a member of the SEPP Board.

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Words: In his essay, Lennart Bengtsson explained why he was reluctant to write articles for public media. A large part of my unwillingness to partake in public debate is connected to my friend Sven Öhman, a linguist who wrote about semantics and not least about the difficulties specialists run into when attempting to communicate with the public. Words and concepts have different meanings and are interpreted differently depending on one’s background and knowledge. Sometimes such misunderstanding can be disastrous.

Coincidently, SEPP Director Tom Sheahen wrote an essay clearly explaining how certain words have a specialized meaning to a scientist and a different meaning to the public. The use of the word “collapse” in discussing the West Antarctic ice sheet is one such example. Speaking in terms of geological time, would it be correct to say a giant ice sheet thousands of feet think is about to engulf Manhattan (within years or in several millennia)? See Article # 1 and link under Seeking a Common Ground.

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Gas Play: Russia and China announced an agreement whereby Russia will deliver to China 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year scheduled to be expanded to 60 bcm per year as pipeline capacity expands. The gas will come from fields in eastern Siberia that are yet to be developed. First delivery is expected to be in 2018 over a pipeline that is yet to be built. Given the high cost of transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG), including liquefying and regasifying, a pipeline delivery will be less costly to China than LNG. How this plays with the situation in the Ukraine is not clear. See links under Energy Issues – No US.

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Additions and Corrections: The May 17 TWTW had a discussion of the sensitivity of the planet’s climate to a doubling of CO2. The discussion stated that in AR-5 the IPCC failed to develop a credible subjective probability density function. Several readers asked if the term “subjective” should have been “objective.” An objective probability density function is developed from experimentation and observations, such as flipping a coin. A subjective probability density function is developed by asking a panel of experts to assess probability of X. In the past, the latter method is how the IPCC arrived at its probability statements. In AR-5, it did not even develop a subjective probability function for climate sensitivity – yet the Summary for Policymakers expresses 95% confidence that humans are primarily responsible for global warming/climate change?

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Hand-Out: Using publically available material, SEPP has developed a simple five-page handout, “Climate Fears and Finance.” The handout emphasizes the failure of the climate models and the enormous amounts of money the US has spent on global warming/climate change. The handout is available for downloading, without cost, on the SEPP website http://www.sepp.org/key_issues.cfm?whichyear=2014

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Number of the Week: Down 96%. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the US Energy Information Administration will announce that the estimated recoverable reserves of oil in the extremely large Monterey shale formation in California will be only 4% of the prior estimate. The oil bearing rock is still there, but it is a matter of extraction and costs. Due to plate tectonics, the rock is folded in multiple places. These folds prevent long-distance horizontal drilling with multi-port fracturing. Using current technology, the oil cannot be profitably extracted. Such a downgrade of recoverable reserves represents the difference between a natural resource as something that exists and a natural resource that can be utilized. The downgrading will be a caution against too much enthusiasm for shale formations that have not been properly explored. See link under Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?

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ARTICLES:

For the numbered articles below, please see this week’s TWTW at: http://www.sepp.org. The articles are at the end of the pdf.

1. The specialized meaning of words in the ‘Antarctic ice shelf collapse’ and other climate alarm stories

[SEPP Comment: No doubt the EPA and the Administration are seeking a way to circumvent the law. One trick the EPA has played in the past is to dismiss the judicial order as regional, and claim it does not apply to national regulations.]

Perhaps these several observations suggest there may be a potential for both the IPCC and the NIPCC to agree on the core aspect of reducing poverty, as each moves forward in attempting to determine what is best for the biosphere – and humanity – as time marches on.

[SEPP Comment: If farmers plan according the projections to 2040 from climate models, they may well be facing bankruptcy. WUWT shows how global warming, and other factors, influenced yields in the US, as previously shown by Roy Spencer.]

[SEPP Comment: The opening line of the abstract states: “with small differences between mean summer and winter temperatures.” From this research we will generalize about the effects of global warming?]

Lowering Standards

Shollenberger calls Cook’s and University of Queensland’s legal bluff!

[SEPP Comment: It appears that to European Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard anything large that works well and efficiently is unsustainable. Has she ever heard of calculations of tonne/km?]